


The Dream Went On Forever (One Single Static Frame)

by callmedok



Series: Waiting For The Night To Fall [2]
Category: Brütal Legend
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Undeath, Crows, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internal Conflict, Kissing, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Slow Burn, Video Game Mechanics, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmedok/pseuds/callmedok
Summary: Ophelia brings Crowley in to be the general of the Drowned Doom, and at first it's straight forward, easy to handle.Then Kill Master realizes one day,I'd do anything for them. Ignoring emotions ensue, until it can't hold any longer.(Part of an AU where Kill Master joins the Doom, now turned into a collection of one-shots of the aftermath.)





	1. Coming Home To You (If It’s The Last Thing That I Do)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was given the prompt 'Embrace', and it... kind of turned into a mini-monster of a one-shot. This ties into an AU where Kill Master joins the Drowned Doom after being presumed dead by Ironheade, and for now this is an off-shoot of the main idea which will hopefully be posted some time in the near future. Enjoy some Kill Master being horrible when it comes to dealing with emotions, and Crowley and Ophelia taking none of his shit.
> 
> Mr. Crowley is a character that never made it into the game beyond concept art, so what you see before you is more or less an OC.  
> The chapter title comes from Sax Rohmer, Pt. 1 by The Mountain Goats and the main title from Autoclave by the same band, because for some reason their music works well for Brütal Legend.

The introduction is quick in the heat of battle, when Ophelia gestures for him to return to her side.  
  
He’s in his guise of the Re-animator then, with the grim steed skull acting as a mask to further disguise his features, a long dark cloak replacing his usual duster. To Ironheade, he might appear a figure of grave omen with his Resurrectionists behind him, bringing back waves of the Doom with a mere gesture to his students. A counter-point to his own Thunder Hogs, and the comparison still leaves his heart aching.  
  
Wondering what could have been, if their factions were united.  
  
But when Ophelia calls for him, he listens. Blinks in surprise at the new figure by her side, about his height with a bowler hat and an axe, head bowed slightly as Ophelia murmurs something in their ear. A quiet “My Queen,” gains their attention, and the figure- no, the deathly pale man’s eyes go wide as if in surprise. Ophelia grins, and there’s something sharp about it as she links arms with the new man.  
  
“Kill Master. I’d like you to meet Crowley, he’ll be handling the others in our stead whenever we can’t. Consider him…” She pauses, tapping her chin in an exaggeration of thought, and there’s a mocking edge to her next words. “Consider him our Riggs, but much more improved.”  
  
Kill Master laugh before he can help himself, and after casting a quick glance at the battle behind them adjusts his mask to give Crowley the courtesy of seeing him face to face. “Well then, Crowley, hope y’don’t mind a trial by fire. Watch your back, alright? The man with wings, Riggs, ain’t too kind to us or our cause.”  
  
With that he slips away back to his unit with a jaunty salute, the memory of Ophelia’s laugh and Crowley’s look of amazement lingering in the back of his mind.  
  
(“He’s- that’s the living man, what is he-” Crowley asks her under his breath, already working his way through potential betrayals, only for Ophelia to quiet him with a squeeze of his arm. “Helping us. They left him in the cold, and now he’s ours.” She says easily, and the surety behind those words keeps him from questioning any further.)  
  
\--  
  
From that moment, something… changes. He can’t say exactly when it happens, just that there’s something different. Ophelia’s smiles appear more often around him, and her touch lingers on his shoulder, his arm. The chill of it becomes a welcome comfort, when his own makeshift family is absent. Crowley fits into their friendship like a missing puzzle piece, with a dark sort of humor that bridges the gap between Kill Master’s dryness and Ophelia’s morbidity. His laughter happens in quick bursts, surprised barks that tend to hang in the air, commonly found with a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth before he can hide it.  
  
They’re both sharp as hell, sometimes rough with edges that cut, but it’s… easy, to sink into this thing between them. He sees a flash of tan at his back, getting in between him and a pissed off Bouncer, and breathes easily. Panic wells up in his chest, seeing Riggs get far too close to Ophelia, and his heart is in his throat with a litany of _uselessuseless **useless**_ pounding in his head-  
  
Crowley steps from the shadows and swings, ax clashing with ax. Ophelia snarls, strikes out with a wave of pitch black that sends Riggs skittering back. There’s no deaths, nothing that the Resurrectionists can’t fix that day, and it ends up a cause for celebration.

There’s more celebrations these days, about those kind of things.

And that’s the first time he ends up in their bed, technically. Celebrating a success with some drinks and some snarking, before they began their planning anew. Add in one too many drinks, the excitement finally wearing out, and the warmth that came with the two Doom laughing over how they trounced Riggs… He fell asleep with his head on one of their shoulders, and has faint memories afterwards of being moved around, cool fingers brushing his hair back.

He wakes up next to both of them, and leaves almost immediately afterwards. It feels wrong, uncomfortable, to be privy to the way Crowley holds Ophelia so carefully, and both of them looking so…relaxed, at ease in sleep. It makes his stomach do something funny, and that’s reason enough to leave alongside needing to catch up with his friends.

The second, the third time, it’s for similar reasons. The fourth, it’s because he nearly got skewered and both of them were fucking mother hens, worse than Janet even. The fifth…

Well, fuck. That time wasn’t much of an accident at all.

\--

The fifth time, its Crowley caught in the cross-fire.

Steps right into a swing meant to hit Kill Master, and it leaves the healer _furious._ With a sharp hiss the nearest Frightwig starts hitting Eddie, a yell of “Marguerite!” brings some of the Brides over, thankfully accompanied by one of the Brood. It’s enough of a mess to snag a horse from one of the Reapers, and sling Crowley onto it to get the fuck away. None of his students are close enough to borrow a bike, and they need to leave now.

“You fucking asshole, what were you thinking?” he snaps, briefly looking over his shoulder to meet Crowley’s eyes. The other man’s arms are tight around his waist, and that’s the only comfort with the glassiness of his eyes feeling like a stone weighing on his chest. He’s not risking Crowley or Ophelia, even if it meant putting himself in the way first.

Crowley coughs, flecks of blood staining his blue lips, and manages a weak grin as he replies “Ha-hard to take a dead man to bed, yeah?” He laughs only for it to turn into more coughs, and a low, wounded noise leaves Kill Master’s throat.

“Your timing is fucking shit, mate. Hold on, an’ try to keep your innards in, alright?” Kill Master replies, trying to ignore the brief flutter in his chest because this is more important. With barely a thought he reaches out, feeling for Ophelia’s presence, and when it feels like he’s been dunked in ice water he knows it’s the right direction.

So he rides, with blood staining the back of his duster and Crowley’s ragged breathing on the back of his neck.

(What a godsdamn day to play the Re-animator, with not enough time to go for his bass.)

*

Ophelia is terrifying, intimidating, absolutely _beautiful_ with the way she moves when the battle is long over, and they’re safely away from prying eyes. Moves like a metal beast ready to bare its teeth, and maul the next person who looked at her wrong. Her power is practically tangible with the shadows whipping around her feet, and the temperature dropping to a familiar chill.

“Who did this, my dear?” She asks with an edge of steel, her eyes flickering black as she trails her fingers along the bandages on Crowley’s chest. “Who has to pay for this?"

Kill Master coughs from where he’s playing his bass, and replies “He took it, for me. Riggs, he… I think he ain’t a fan of us, Miss Ophelia.” He smiles mirthlessly after his attempt at humor, before casting a glance Crowley’s direction so he doesn’t have to meet Ophelia’s eyes. “He shoulda just let me take it, the bastard. Woulda been right as rain, in a bit.”

Ophelia snaps something then, in that strange watery language of hers, before replying with an angry “You’re _ours_. We protect our own, unlike some.” There’s the sound of her footsteps on the stone floor, drawing closer to his chair, and he closes his eyes again. Like that he can focus on the feeling of them instead, the strange bubbling warmth of Crowley alongside the crack of stone, the roaring water and glint of steel that was Ophelia. Familiar and comforting, things he knew with the same certainty as he knew himself.

And even with the way his magic curls around them like a friendly kitten, he still tries to cling to a shred of denial.

Which is right about when Ophelia cups his cheek and tilts his head up again, the same way she’d done after that disastrous first battle. But rather than that steely edge, her expression is… open, with something almost soft about it. Like that one angel statue at the graveyard they’d first talked in, and it feels so strange to think that it’s been over a year since then.

“You’re our heart in some ways, my dear. Why would we ever risk it?” She says quietly, and _oh_.

“Crowley… mentioned something like that, earlier. You serious ‘bout this? Don’t think I can take any more surprises today,” He asks, feeling a little like an outsider looking in on someone else’s life as the words leave his mouth. As he sees up close the way her lips tug up in a smile, how her eyes seem to light up at the tentative wording.

“D-dead serious,” Crowley speaks up from the bed with a charming grin, briefly tripped up by a rough cough as Ophelia and Kill Master look to him instead. “We have been thinking about it, the last while.” Ophelia confirms with a kind smile, and it makes his heart do something funny.

“I always wanted to be yours,” He says before he can stop himself, and with the way both of them light up it’s the loveliest thing he’s ever seen.

(Somehow, later that night, he finds himself in bed with Crowley’s face buried in his neck, and an arm around Ophelia’s waist. Eventually he closes his eyes and let’s himself sink into the embrace of their magic, for the first time feeling that he can completely relax. He has a home again, and the realization is staggering.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1/11/2019: [There's a mix now!](https://8tracks.com/doktorbutchee/all-winter-we-got-carried-away-doom-au) It's a little rough around the edges because this is stuff purely on my laptop, so there's your heads up.
> 
> Also! Sonicsora, who's building this AU with me, has posted their own Doom AU fic [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104319/chapters/40224965) It's really good, and inspired me to overhaul the original start of the AU so it fits latter segments (such as this) much better. There's a lot of gay hollering behind scenes tbh, so I hope y'all enjoy the fruits of said yelling.


	2. Kisses Light As The Air (What Comes Down Eventually Rises)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got another prompt of 'She's on my mind', and it went... sideways, to say the least. Shorter than the first one, but just as romantical. Also gets into some thoughts of how KM's adjusting to the Doom which is, hm, probably not the healthiest. But hey, weird stuff happens sometimes after some bad happenings.
> 
> Chapter title comes from a misquote of Games Shows Touch Our Lives by the Mountain Goats. This is gonna be a Mountain Goats compilation album, if I play my cards right.

She tastes like ash, the sharp cut of a winter’s breeze that goes right to the bone, something bitter he can’t place.

Like a memory, distorted through a cracked mirror in his nightmares.

But the curl of her mouth is kind in the smile she wears, her touch gentle as she threads fingers into his hair. Her lips are a slick black without that rainbow shine of spilled oil, and she laughs lowly before leaning in. That little satisfied sound that meant everything was going her way, and he wouldn’t dream of objecting.

The pull of the Tears is familiar now, less like a screaming headache and more of a gentle murmur, but it’s no longer the demanding force that wants to devour him. No, it whispers sweet nothings as he rests a hand at her waist, kisses back as best as he can, because it’s already a foregone conclusion he’s theirs. Theirs by association, by name, if not by Tears just yet.

And when strong arms wrap around his waist from behind, kisses trailed up his neck, he breaks the kiss in order to sigh. Simply basks in the comforting chill of his partners, the ones he’d move the moon and stars for given the chance.

Blue skin and sharp grins haunt his dreams, with black water lapping at his feet and whispers he can’t decipher. Figures that like holding him close, damn near possessive as they tug him away from the depths, for now at least. 

He’s never slept better, with them on the mind.


	3. Sing For The Damage We've Done (And The Worst Things That We'll Do)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figuring out in-game mechanics is fun, alongside a little bit of character building. Mmm, tasty worldbuilding.
> 
> Chapter title from Alpha Rats Nest by the Mountain Goats.

Dancing with Crowley is… interesting.  
  
The one he has with Ophelia is a smooth gliding waltz, with the Organist’s music grand and sweeping. Their movement is easy, unaffected by the terrain with a bit of Tears to ease the way, and technically he has the leading position. Ophelia’s the Queen though, power in every stride or gesture she makes, and without question she’s in control. And it must be something about being the leader that means their dance results in a blue-green healing wave, because the closest he’s ever felt this was with Riggs in the back of his bike. Waltzing with a devastatingly beautiful and deadly woman was far better, in that regard.

But with Crowley, it’s close to a _fight._

Yanking and tugging at each other to get into position, gripping a little too tight to each other, growled directions and sharp grins shared between them. Kill Master’s never been a teacher for this kind of thing, and Crowley’s never given a shit about learning. It’s just about trying to push forward, match Ophelia step for step in their own way. Sharp grating edges colliding, broken man meeting broken soldier, but the Doom has always been a home for the broken and weary. When they go through the motions, it’s something poisonous that blooms. Something sickly purple, unnatural and strange, that drains away life as the music from their stage turns dark and pounding, vocals indiscernible.

It’s so much like the early Doom that the first time it sent his heart into his throat, but nowadays has become something familiar, something almost… desirable, even if it was a guilty indulgence.

That little part of him that barred its teeth, wanted Ironheade to _hurt_ the way he’d hurt, loved it. Barely cared that in the aftermath there was the sharp metallic taste of blood at the back of his throat, his hands shook a little because even he wasn’t quite immune to the effects of it. There was always a hand on his back then, a handkerchief produced from nowhere accepted easily, and that made all the difference in the end.

He grins at Crowley with a bit of blood on his lips, and Crowley grins back. It makes his heart pound like it’s his first love all over again, and every time it’s just as sweet.

“Help an old man get to his bike?” He jokes, and Crowley offers him an arm with a brief tip of his bowler.

“Whatever you wish, dear,” Crowley replies with a grin, and Kill Master laughs as he hooks their arms together.


	4. Know How A Man Becomes A Beast (When The Wolfbane Blooms)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when you put Werewolf Gimmick by the Mountain Goats on repeat, and you have more or less a blank slate to play with. Enjoy!
> 
> Edit 4/6/19: This was written when we still had Crowley as a Blue Boi, and with switching him to a POC because Brutal Legend _really_ needs some diversity, this honestly needed an update and better language. So I'm keeping this here for posterity and to go 'Hey, I was dumb', and Chapter 7 will have the rewrite of this.

Crowley has… fragments, if he pokes further back in his memories, before he was taken from the Sea.  
  
Seeing his Queen’s face for the first time, that of the lovely Ophelia, was damn near a revelation permanently stamped in his mind. It was like Aetulia herself had reached down for him, and perhaps he was biased in a way. But there was still something more, beyond that day. Something he couldn’t quite get a grasp on, slipping through his fingers like sand every time he tried.

He’d swear, the first time he sees Kill Master without his face paint, that he knows, knew the man in some way. Not intimately, because the man would have looked gutted rather than intrigued their first meeting. There was something delightfully… refreshing about the healer’s honesty, even if it was through body language rather than from his own mouth. Thinking it over there had been no spark of recognition, or tenseness in his figure that’d indicate some sort of familiarity.

Crowley knew those eyes though, somehow.

Knew that shade of icy blue, and how it felt to be pinned in place by it. How the corners crinkled up when he smiled, or laughed. Age couldn’t change much of that beyond some wrinkles, and it still was achingly familiar.

And the first time he sees Riggs without the redness to his skin, the wings and yellow eyes, it’s like seeing a ghost. For a moment a chill goes down his spine, makes him lag a little as he swings his axe, because there should be a scar over his eye. There should be gray streaks in his hair, tattoos down his arms. There should be a boisterous laugh, and a cry of ‘ _Crowley! Think you’ll one-up me again, I was made commander for a reason!_ ’ as they fight.

Instead there’s just the clash of axes, no sword in sight, and Riggs babbling something about how ‘no zombie motherfucker will take a chomp outta my ass!’

It offends him for some reason, and so he pushes Riggs back, back towards the edge of the cliff graveyard. The man has wings, he’ll come out the other side fine even if it leaves a bitter taste in Crowley’s mouth to not see the job through. He hurt Ophelia, and-

No, it has to be enough. Just enough for now, he thinks as he grits his teeth and delivers a dirty kick to the other man’s stomach, pushing him over the edge. The sudden leathery _fwap_ of opening wings sends him retreating, and when he gets swarmed by Headbangers in the next moment he’s not even fazed.

Just another fact: If Riggs can’t do something, he’ll send these men to their deaths. The bitter taste in his mouth turns sour, into something dark and earthy like the way the graveyards smell in the fog, and it takes everything he has not to retch. The murmur of the Sea, in the back of his mind, is almost delighted at the thought. More food for its hungering maw, if Ophelia deigns to indulge its whims.

One of the Treeback’s crows lands on his shoulder during the ensuing carnage, and even as blood drips from his axe, his clothes, he takes the moment to pet it. Stroke at the feathers under its chin, and murmur a brief message for his Queen before it took flight once more.

Kill Master had his Frightwigs, who helped gather him intel through chittering and teeth clacks. Ophelia could understand any of the Tear-touched, in watery murmurs and sighs that sounded like poetry. Crowley had his birds, the crows and ravens that populated the skies in Doom territory. The carrion eaters, who’d eat out of his palm given the change. So sweet and earnest in their intentions, wanting nothing more than some food and some affection.

And even back then, in the murky haze of his memories, the birds were there too. There’d be the flash of white feathers, associated with some kind of deep terror he couldn’t shake. Crows cawing overhead against a backdrop of mist, the strange blue-purple lighting turning it far too ominous. But what feels like an even further stretch, like his mind is trying to keep him from it…

He remembers death, too.

He remembers how fighting to leave the Sea of Black Tears was like moving through tar, slow and falteringly. Remembers the feeling of screaming his throat raw, some creature possessed by the spirit of Ormagöden as there was this sudden fire burning through his veins as he changed. Pain in such dizzying amounts than he’d ever felt before, and this time there was no scrappy young thing with eyes of ice and awkward lankiness to heal him. There was just fear, before the Sea was closed again.

But then there was Ophelia, the woman who had his heart beating again, whose smiles held such warmth. There was Kill Master, the man with those familiar eyes, whose touch had become almost grounding. With them, they brought hope.

Crowley isn’t the man he was, years before. He may never be that man again after what he’s been through, what he’s seen. But at least whenever he turns into a beast, lost in the madness and blood lust of the Tears, he has people to draw him back to himself.

When Ironheade has been successfully fought off, he joins the war room alongside the other two leaders. Kill Master is at his left, face pink from wiping away his face paint, jacket abandoned and sleeves rolled up as he picks at some food. There’s a bright blue flower tucked in his shirt pocket, and when he laughs it’s a beautiful sight. Ophelia at his right is gorgeous as ever in her signature dress, has a bright blue flower as well tucked behind her ear, and when she smiles his heart does something funny. He wouldn’t trade away anything that got him to this moment, even if it meant that he could have lived a nice long life.

How could he dream of a world where Ophelia didn’t touch his arm to get his attention, or Kill Master wasn’t there with some snarky comment while patching him up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia’s flower is a gentian for sweetness. Kill Master has a bachelor button (aka a bluebottle or cornflower) which means funnily enough celibacy, anticipation, delicacy, and perfection. Look, blue flowers are #aesthetic for the Doom, and I wanted to toss in a little fun because fun fact! Wolfsbane aka aconite can poison someone on skin contact, so _that's_ not going on Crowley's lapel.
> 
> ...This is the stuff I research for fun.


	5. When The House Goes Up In Flames (No One Emerges Triumphantly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Bad Ending, where we follow game canon a little closer and have a big knock-out fight near the Sea. Things go wrong, quickly.   
> Based on a prompt, 17. "Die quietly."
> 
> CW: Blood, slightly graphic imagery, gross injury stuff, a bad fucking time in Doom land.
> 
> Title from Michael Myers Resplendent by the Mountain Goats

“Die quietly.” Riggs says, right after the sickening _shlup_ of the axe getting removed from his chest, as he crumples to the ground.

And he laughs. He laughs wetly and roughly and horribly, blood staining his teeth, coating his mouth. Laughs as his entire body protests, bones grinding against each other and giving out when he tries to prop himself up on an arm. It hurts, everything godsdamned hurts, and he can feel blood soaking through his shirt, onto the hand pinned agonizingly over the wound.

The chill of the ground is familiar, all-consuming, any other time he’d be terrified but it’s so achingly right. He’d always known, in some distant disturbing way, it’d end like this. End with graveyard dirt, his body aching with every wet hacking laugh, and his partners so horribly, terribly far away.

But even with pain blurring everything, the taste of copper making his head spin, the Sea’s whispers are clear as day.

Angry snarling, mourning wails and gnashing teeth, the sickening sense of what decay and death sound like in motion. A void, an absence of anything seems to trail behind it, ringing in his ears is nothingness. Every drop of pain, fear, sadness, every single drop of the dark miasma of the human experience is rattling around in his head right now.

And he laughs, because he’s one of the Queen’s favored, the Sea’s beloved, and the Sea is at his back. The Sea is on his tongue, in his hands, on the broken bass at his side, because to even brush by the Tears is to know it. To kiss its Queen, those children borne from it, is to take some of it within yourself.

The Sea is starving and who is he to deny its assistance when the dark spots in his vision are starting to grow.

A tendril reaches out, coils around his ankle, while Riggs looks on him in something close to horror. But with his shirt turning red-brown with each straining beat of his heart, blood and dirt discoloring the paint on his face, its well deserved. It’s well deserved as he manages to rasp out, sounding damn near like a death rattle, “You’ll have to fucking bury me first.”

It _hurts_ , hurts like being dragged through broken glass and jagged scrap metal, when the Sea drags him across the ground. But he laughs, wetly and horribly and brokenly, at the look on Riggs’ face before he’s tugged under the waves.

For a second he sees Riggnarok in that sheer panic, the panic right before the Sea was opened the first time, and he closes his eyes instead. Thinks of Ophelia and Crowley, his Resurrectionists, every single Drowned who’s stood by his side in his darkest hour.

The Sea feels like coming **h̵͈̺̼̬̠͆̅͐̀͑̇̾ͩo͗ͯ͊̀̊̆҉̧̲̙͕̰̺̻̥ͅm̷̬͇̮̆̆̈́̑̓ͧ͡e̗̪̎ͣ̃̂̒͑̊͢.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And after this he crawls out of the Sea looking pretty terrifying, until one of his students drags him aside and stitches him up. Ophelia and Crowley zero in on Eddie almost instantly, and revenge attempts ensue.


	6. No Promise Sweeter Than A Blood Pact (No Morning Colder Than The First Frost)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kill Master needs to bring some things up before a relationship happens, and some emotional baggage is addressed because pfft, who are they, Ironheade?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of started this on my phone late at night, and for some reason my go-to phrase for openings is variations of 'Here's the thing.' More stream of consciousness than usual, a little messier in some ways, and also references some things that came up in the rewrite of the original fic that y'all will see eventually.
> 
> Title is from Rain in Soho by the Mountain Goats.

But here's the thing.

He's never really claimed to be a good man. He never really learned how to be one, building himself on patchwork memories of his parents this entire time. Selfishness is easy, considering how long he pretended the world outside Thunderhorn didn't matter. Revenge and anger were simple, something he understood like breathing since the First Rebellion, something he grasped since Lionwhyte all those years ago.

Lots of things, from family ties to apprentices to talents that could change the world, have turned to ash in front of him since he was young. By this point he isn't sure if he'll survive without the Doom around, end up one of the wandering dead if it comes to their demise because, horrible as it sounded, no one was kind as they were kind. No one was, anymore.

"Everything I touch turns to shit," he says, because the two people in front of him are offering him everything while he has nothing. This entire time he's been dependent on her kindness, relied on him to watch his back, and what has he given in return? They offer him the world, and all he has is shaking hands and words trapped behind his teeth, in his throat.

She snorts though, and says "You'd be in fine company then," with an underlying bitterness that makes him wince, flinch back, because of all the wounds to scrape open.

But that isn't what he meant, didn't mean that all of them here were parallels alone, so he makes a disagreeing noise. Uses his teeth to remove his gloves because it feels more real, more visceral that way, and he still smells like roses and ash as he shows them his hands.

Streaks of scar tissue bite into his palms, wrap around the bases of his fingers, all of them thick as bass strings. Well-healed white, ugly mottled purple-red where it was too close to veins, too close to the surface as like called to like and even now they itched already, wanted to rest on their shoulders, curl gently around their wrists. Tears recognized Tears even by injuries alone, and in some ways he was a living wound these days, little comfort in sight unless it was with them, with the Queen and her General.

(Nowadays the Doom called him her Healer, and he couldn't deny them even as he remembered how his strings snapped over twenty years ago in desperation, how they burned him so he'd never make this mistake again.

But look where Aetulia guided him, look at where she took him after he'd wallowed in his own despair for _years_ in cheap imitation of her-)

"Everything I touch turns to shit," he repeats, softly in a way he's only managed with them, tiredly because he can already feel the aches settling in. A tension that held his shoulders tight after a stage battle, because some day the raptor elk kick would come and shatter his ribs for playing dead. The dread that centered in the middle of his back, kept him up at night when the dreams didn't because what if this was the day everything tumbled down, what if this was the day he lost them, lost everyone he still cared for-

He swallows around the lump in his throat, hands falling down to his sides as he wishes he had his aviators. Looks away from them even as it feels like a betrayal, occupying himself with the blue fog of the Dry Ice Mines instead because being this honest and plain felt like ripping out teeth.

"You two are the best things in my life," he continues, voice sounding distant and strange even as he offers his heart on a platter to them, "an' more than a bastard like me deserves. How could-" He cuts himself off by biting the inside of his cheek, and takes a steadying breath. It's shaky, a bit ragged like he just crawled out of the depths of a nightmare, and it almost makes him want to laugh.

Instead he scrubs at one of his eyes with a low annoyed sound that verges on wounded, and doesn't care if he's streaking black face paint through white. It all has to be washed away in the end, what's one more mess.

"I'd break my oath, burn everythin' if it meant you two were safe. I'd fight, an'-" He fumbles a little for the next phrase, fumbles because he'd offer _everything_ is the point, his flesh and blood and soul, if it meant that they were still standing while he wasn't. Give them his heart willingly, because Ophelia had cupped his cheek so gently and said it wasn't his fault when he felt his lowest, because Crowley wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him to the nearest steed when a double-team wrung him dry. Even if he died tomorrow, he'd give them everything now with no regrets because it was still something he could give.

"I'd give you everythin' even if it only lasted a day," he eventually confesses, because maybe it can be simple as that for once. Easier than trying to turn this tangled jumble of his past and some uglier feelings into a palpable thing under the gloom of day, trying to crack himself open when some of the stitching in said wounds hadn't quite settled yet. Walk before you run so you don't pop a stitch, and he's been running far too long with threads streaming behind him.

At some point he must have closed his eyes, hell only knows when, because cool fingers tangling with his own startle him a little, nearly make him take a step back until the broader hand of the two gently tugs him closer. All their hands are calloused, the sign of a war at work even if it's by blade, axe, or bass, and his heart cracks a bit at that. Like finding like, rough edges finally finding something to catch on, and the thought doesn't come with its usual twist of nerves.

Their hands fit with his smoothly, easily without gloves in the way, and he laughs wetly despite himself. Ophelia's smile is gentle and kind, the first breath of the waning months when the heat's become too much. Crowley's is soft, strangely tender on a usually so grim face, and he's probably never loved anyone more before this moment.

"You two made this look easy," he says, smiling even as his voice still sounds wrong and wet.

"Oh darling," Ophelia begins, cupping his cheek with her free hand, and he leans into it without thought, "it never is."

"Just takes some courage, that's all," Crowley adds, tugging him closer again, and when he goes into their arms it's willingly.


	7. The Dust Of The Grave (I Will Be Saved)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley probably has a past.
> 
> Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rewrite of Chapter 4, because mmmmm I said some dunkass things that do not translate well when taking into consideration how Crowley's character has changed. Also, just a better basis for who he is as a character now, opposed as to how he was written in November.
> 
> Chapter title comes from Luna by the Mountain Goats.

Crowley has fragments, if he honestly and truly tries to dig into what happened before he was raised from the Sea.

But the sight of Ophelia, hair floating around her like a cloud of ink, eyes dark and hand extended as she offered him a new breath of life, overshadowed it all. The Queen who brought him up, up into the light again, who he’d follow into the depths of the greatest beyond to fight the Titans themselves if she asked it of him. It was comparable to Aetulia herself walking among them, and gifting him with her favor.

 It was a sight he’d never forget as long as he lived, but even then…

Even then, not everything was erased. There were things that he couldn’t get a firm grasp on as they slid between his fingers like grains of sand, ephemeral and fleeting.

Aetulia’s name rolled off his tongue with familiarity, an easiness that was bone-deep and well established. Picking up his axe again merely required a few hours of refreshment, the weapon practically an extension of himself, the weight almost comforting. Flashes of old prayers to Aetulia of the Sea, Aetulia of Song, where the words themselves were faded and jumbled. The dry coldness of traveling in snow, how to handle the frustration of the swamp, and how best to lurk among the fog without notice.

The first time he sees Kill Master, Lem, without his face paint, though, it strikes some forgotten chord. Flickers of braided hair pass through the back of his mind, the red-brown color of some kind of animal hide or jacket, a melody he barely had anything of. Crowley knew how it felt to be pinned into place by that icy blue gaze, though. Felt that itch of something forgotten as the healer smiled, and his eyes crinkled a certain way.

Things that couldn’t be changed by time, and yet Crowley couldn’t say how much had actually passed.

First time seeing Riggs on the ground, no red in his skin or yellow to his eyes, he understands so horribly that phrase of a raven walking over someone’s grave. Feels something trickle down his spine like ice and it means he carries too far with a swing, a practiced gesture turned sloppy enough for Riggs to slide out of the way. There is no scar over his eye, no gray in his hair, and the only thought pounding in Crowley’s head is _wrongwrong **WRONG**_ -

It’s not the ringing of steel as a sword meets an axe, but a deeper ringing as axe collides with axe that leaves more ice down Crowley’s spine. Leaves a pit opening up in his stomach as he ignores Riggs’ paltry attempts at insults, and pushes the other man back in a display of strength. Back, back towards the shattered fence of the cliff side graveyard, because maybe the job will be done that way. Riggs was petty, threw Ophelia away, expected them to roll over and die, and-

There’s the leathery _thwap_ of wings opening up, and Crowley grits his teeth, skitters backwards as Riggs shouts some kind of command. Even then he still ends up swarmed by Headbangers within seconds, and isn’t that fucking typical. If Riggs wanted to lick his wounds and keep his hands clean, he’d send others to meet their end. There’s a bitterness in Crowley’s throat as he fights through them, turns sour as more of them keep bearing down on him, and it makes him want to retch, makes him want to scream in frustration.

As he’s catching his breath behind one of the larger grave markers, one of the Treeback’s crows lands on his shoulder uncaring of the blood splattered all over him. Even with the cry of orders in the distance, Ophelia’s voice ringing in his ears, he still takes the moment to stroke the feathers underneath the bird’s chin, and murmur a message for it to carry back to the Queen. There’s not enough time for him to take flight and run it back, and as such he’ll do what he can.

Lem had Frightwigs who’d direct him around enemies, watch his back as he dashed between groups for healing. Ophelia had her watery sighs and murmurs that any Tear-touched could grasp, and it sounded like poetry from her lips. Crowley had earned the favor of the carrion birds by offering them gifts of food and affection, and as such they’d carry what he needed, fight if called upon.

Even in the hazy glimpses of the past, he sees the birds as well. Their cawing from the trees as mist drifted through, the flash of some white type of membrane that left a sickness oozing up his throat, the sharp pecking of the carrion eaters going through a rib-cage.

But even beyond that, there is still something further. Something beyond the all-consuming nature of the Sea, where I became We and any sense of self was swallowed whole until you reached the shore.

He remembers screaming.

Screaming and screaming and screaming until his throat was raw, the slick feeling of blood coating his hands, fingers stuck around the grip of his axe. The wet sucking sound as he yanked his weapon free, muscles burning with exertion, and he’s so fucking tired as he pushes further. So fucking exhausted that he’s almost grateful when white hot pain blooms across his back, as he turns into a puppet with its strings cut and the Sea murmurs-

That was another life though, another time. The barest bones he can dig up anymore, and even then it leaves his head pounding as if it’s being crushed. Leaves him with his head in his hands as he tries to block out any light, as it feels like knives being shoved into his mind and shredding thoughts apart. The Sea croons to forget, let it wash off his shoulders, and so he lets it go.

He lets the threads slip between his fingers without protest, because…

There’s desperation now, there will always be desperation in times of war, but it isn’t tearing him apart. There’s Ophelia with her kind eyes and gentle heart, her sharp mind and biting wit. There’s Lem with his familiar eyes and careful hands, his fumbling words and quick mind nonetheless. Two people he’d never have met if the past had kept him, two people he never would have felt at rest with.

Crowley will never be that man again, whoever he was before the Sea’s embrace. Might never be able to fully grasp the way his partners carry ghosts with them, when all his ghosts have been forgotten. But he’s no longer a denizen of the Sea alone, left to drift in blank nothingness.

When Ironheade’s been chased off and the Doom are celebrating, he winds through camp to their shared tent without pause. At most he slows to give a few passing undead a respectful dip of the head, a brief grin as they whoop over success, but he has something better waiting for him than this.

He has the sight of Lem wiping away his face paint, laughter muffled at whatever Ophelia had said. Ophelia’s smiling, a pleased thing with soft-edges as she leans partially on the table with rough maps spread over it. There’s a blue flower tucked into one of Lem’s button holes when he drops the towel to his lap, face pink as he grins, and warmth curls in Crowley’s chest. A blue flower is tucked behind Ophelia’s ear when she turns to see who entered their tent, and when her smile softens even further it makes his heart do something funny.

He wouldn’t change anything he’d done to get to this moment, even if once upon a time he could have lived a nice long life. Why would he live in a world without Ophelia’s fingers trailing down his arm to get his attention, or without Lem there to lean into him?


End file.
